What Friends are For
by thisisforyou
Summary: For a prompt on the kinkmeme. Bond should really learn to trust his instincts when they tell him they don't like his Quartermaster's new boyfriend; then again, he was a little distracted at the time. Bond/Q, first fic for this fandom so feedback appreciated! T for triggery things regarding domestic abuse and slightly sexaul - who am I kidding, overtly sexual situations.
1. Chapter 1

**For the prompt on the kinkmeme: **_Q gets a boyfriend that Bond doesn't like for some unknown reason, and he starts to understand why when he sees things at work that give him the impression that Q's boyfriend is abusive (physically, mentally, etc). And Bond gets possessive as hell. Then they end up together at the end. _

My first time writing for the fandom and I must say I found these two rather difficult. I would really appreciate your opinions on how I could improve.

**-for you**

* * *

It takes him so long to realise that he wonders if he might be losing his touch.

He doesn't like to concern himself with office gossip, of course, but he can't avoid the offices down at Q-branch forever – especially when M seems to have assigned their young leader responsibility as some kind of handler for him. The cellphone they insisted on giving him chimes at least twice a day with a request that he make his way downstairs to test something or answer some questions or fill out some form or other, which has turned almost alarmingly quickly into a regular-as-clockwork cup of tea in Q's office.

The unspoken rule that neither of them will ask any questions about the other's personal life is shattered when Bond wanders in with two handfuls of Earl Grey to find that he's one short, because there's a burly, tanned man sitting in the seat that Q usually keeps for him. Q's been giggling, and his face is flushed and a little lock of hair has fallen over his glasses, and he looks up at Bond and smiles like he'd forgotten all about him.

"007," he says, his voice slightly breathless. "This is Terry, my boyfriend."

_Terry_ stands up and smiles, and shakes Bond's hand, and says something in rather poor taste about having heard a lot about him and hoping that gadgets are the only things that Q is supplying him with. Bond dislikes him immediately, and maybe that should be the first thing that clues him in.

Instead, he smiles uneasily, hands Q the Scrabble mug of strong black tea and backs out of the office.

There are little things that change immediately, like the times he comes back from field jobs late at night and has to hand his equipment back to some corpulent blond fortysomething instead of a familiar face, but otherwise everything's the same: they still meet for tea at precisely 10:30am every morning, and Q still comments in his clipped drawl when Bond is even a minute late, but for a while at least _Terry_ stays out of their conversation.

Then Bond makes the mistake of calling the Quartermaster uptight.

He does it in fun, of course, about a month after he first became aware of _Terry_'s existence. Q made a pointed statement about the number of gadgets that actually returned from Bond's assignments when compared to the number he was issued, and really it seemed the only valid response to such an accusation. He regrets it as soon as the words leave his mouth and the young Quartermaster stiffens and turns his face away, that warm and open expression closing off into cool professionalism.

Bond apologises. Q waves him away.

"I know I am," he says softly. "Terry says so too."

He puts down his cup of tea and tries to chase the Quartermaster's eyes around the side of the desk by craning his head. "He says what?" he asks, trying to keep his voice soft rather than let the sudden bitter, hot _something_ in his stomach escape through his throat.

Q shrugs. "I've had to fight so hard to get where I am that it's hard for me to let go, even just at home. I know it's… I mean… I am working on it. I don't mean to be uptight."

"You know I was just joking," he feels compelled to check. "It's your job, not a personal insult. I know I don't take particularly good care of the Q-branch gadgets, and that's my fault, not yours."

The lanky man raises a sardonic eyebrow. "Did James Bond just admit to having a personality flaw?" he asks wryly.

Bond laughs it away. "Remember it, Q, because it won't happen again," he rejoins sharply. But as they fall back into their teacups, the self-satisfied smile falls away from Q's face, leaving him the youngest Bond has ever seen him look. "Are you all right, though?" he asks quietly, feeling like he should reach out for the other man's hand but not quite being able to. He's rubbish at this personal stuff, always has been.

Q nods and smiles, the corners of his eyes creasing momentarily before resettling into youthfulness. "Of course," he replies, draining the last of his Earl Grey. "I'm fine."

Bond knows fake smiles. He should have known this one.

He notices about a week later that his friend – although he doesn't notice the exact moment when the young Quartermaster stops being just a colleague and joins the extremely elite group he calls 'friends' – has become unusually jumpy.

It's a Tuesday when he walks into the office with the traditional offering of Earl Grey to find the man sitting at his desk with his head in his hands; at the sound of the door, Q gives an almighty jump and immediately tries to act like nothing's wrong, stammering slightly over his customary greeting.

"I'm sorry," he says when Bond mentions it. "I'm just tired, I keep switching off."

Once again, Bond knows when someone is lying about being okay, but he just watches Q for another moment before nodding shortly and changing the subject. It's none of his business, really, if Q doesn't want to tell him – no matter if there's a part of him he hasn't dared explore yet that wants to keep the brunette in a cave somewhere and rip out the intestines of anything that tries to hurt him. That's just natural, really, because Q is his friend, and Bond isn't used to having friends.

Only it happens again, and then again – every time Bond gets too close, or touches him by accident, when their fingers brush together or their shoulders bump as they pass, the younger man flinches as though he's expecting to be hit. Those are the exact words Bond uses in his head: _it's like he expects me to hit him._ And yet he _still_ doesn't get it.

Maybe it's because he's trying so hard not to think about Q's home life, because he hasn't quite come to terms with the fact that every time the name _Terry_ floats into his head he feels ill and wants to skin the burly man with a potato peeler and feed him bit by bit to a honey badger. But whatever the reason, it takes breaking his ankle and being suspended from field work before he manages to piece everything together.

He spends the entire week in Q's office, mostly because he has nowhere else to go – although he suspects that even if he did, he'd prefer to be here anyway – and has the opportunity to observe the Quartermaster all day. And that's when he notices.

Q doesn't play the theme music to _The Pink Panther_ and make surreptitious little sneaking movements with his shoulders anymore. He's stopped bringing a packed lunch to work and waving celery sticks in Bond's face. The cups of tea he's still brought from various people throughout the day have stopped being greeted by positively _sexual_ groans of relief as though without the drink he would have perished. It seems like all the little personality quirks that used to make Bond smile have vanished somehow, and the person sitting behind the VIAO laptop with his fingers constantly tapping is barely recognisable from the horde of drones outside the door at all.

In short, it takes Bond almost three months before he notices that something is very wrong with his Quartermaster, and that he himself really, _really_ misses the old Q.

"How's Terry?" he asks suddenly, cutting off something that almost resembled a game of Twenty Questions that Q wasn't really committing to.

The younger man looks up from his screen for a moment, his eyes sharp. "He's fine," he says shortly, and then turns back to his work and studiously doesn't look up for the next few minutes.

Bond frowns. "I'm not stupid, you know," he says after a pause.

Q shoots him a wry look, his lips turning up in a rare sardonic smile. "Really?" he drawls. "The strangest thing you ever killed someone with," he says, changing the subject smoothly back to the game they had been playing.

But he isn't quite ready to give up the subject yet, and so he doesn't tell the story about the leaf-blower or the plastic colander; after a moment's heavy silence the Quartermaster sighs. "I'd rather not discuss my personal life with you, 007." He stands up and picks up a pile of forms one of the other 00 agents had dropped in earlier, clearly intending to leave the room. The last thing Bond wants is for him to leave angry, so he ploughs on.

"I'm just –"

Q snaps. "For fuck's sake, 007!" he shouts, slamming the files down on his desk with a resounding _crunch_ that suggests one of the other 00s is considerably better at handing in their gadgetry than he is. At the noise, the Quartermaster seems to realise how uncharacteristic the outburst was, and that even Bond was so shocked by it that he's sitting bolt upright instead of lounging across three chairs with his foot up. He straightens slowly, massaging a temple with one hand. "Sorry," he says after a moment. The silence between them is heavy as Bond just watches him; for a moment Q looks as though he's about to cry. "I'm sorry," he repeats after a pause. "I'm a bit stressed."

Bond nods perfunctorily. "I know," he replies. The _not that it answers anything_ is implied. "If…" he has to stop and swallow before continuing, because the words are thick in his throat, congealing because he _never_ says them. "If you need anything, you know. I think I've proven that I'm no use with relationship advice, but if you ever need anyone killed, I'm your man."

It's perfectly obvious what he's offering, and after a heart-stopping moment when it looks like Q might actually accept it, the lanky genius gives him a weak but genuine smile. "I'll think about it," he says.

Bond smiles. "Do."

But if Q does, he doesn't say anything, and it's not until weeks later when Bond's been cleared for field-work again that things come to a head.

They're in Q's office again, along with M and a few other people from Q-branch scrambling around and attempting to find a small piece of breakthrough electronics that's somehow fallen through the cracks of the tracking system. It's a rare thing nowadays to see the Quartermaster's eyes light up with the excitement of a challenge or a chase, but they're doing it now and Bond knows he shouldn't be watching them instead of the screen but he's doing it anyway.

"There are about fifty conflicting signals in that room," Q is saying, and Bond is sort of half-listening. "I'll have to scan each of them individually and hope that they don't leave with it while I'm doing it."

M fidgets. "How long will that take?" he asks irritably, and Q gives a sudden bright grin, caught up in the excitement and the joy of being able to do something that everyone else in the room would believe impossible.

"About thirty seconds," he says brightly, stretching out his arms and starting to roll up his sleeves.

Bond gasps. "Are those _fingerprints?_" he yelps, his eyes fixed on Q's stark white forearm.

The Quartermaster bites his lip as though kicking himself under the table and pushes the sleeve back down. "Yes," he says through gritted teeth. Bond opens his mouth to say something else, though he's not quite sure what exactly yet because he's still a bit shocked, but Q cuts him off. "Can we find this thing first? We can talk about the fingerprints later."

Bond looks at M, who looks irritated at the interruption more than concerned about a few bruises on his Quartermaster's arm. "All right," he says reluctantly. "But we will talk about them."

For all his stubbornness that he doesn't want Bond nosing in his personal life, Q only hesitates for a moment before he agrees – although it's possible he only said it because the laptop had beeped, isolating the piece of technology they're looking for so that Q can shut it down and dispatch someone to recover it. In the end they don't need Bond to go in and clean up, so he's still in the office when the hordes disband and trickle out one by one until it's just the two of them. It's late, so the Quartermaster packs up his laptop into its usual bag and picks up his jacket.

"Fingerprints, Q," Bond says softly.

The younger man looks at him as though he'd forgotten he was there and then gives a puzzled frown. "It's my office," he says. "I'm allowed to leave fingerprints."

Bond raises a cool eyebrow. "No, I mean let's _talk_ about the fingerprint-shaped bruises on your arm," he clarifies calmly.

Q's body slumps, but he puts down the laptop and comes to sit in the chair that had until a few weeks ago housed Bond's broken ankle. "I've always bruised easily, you know," he says offhandedly, but he looks exhausted and so _young_ that Bond wants to scoop him up, shelter him with his body and arms so that no-one ever hurts him again. "He didn't really grab me that hard."

This oddly protective, primal urge catches Bond a little off-guard, so he shifts in his chair uneasily. "He didn't hit you?" he checks.

Q swallows, and Bond finds his eyes tracking the movement of his Adam's apple carefully. "I thought he was going to, for a moment," he admits. "But he's never hit me." And then once that flood-gate is open, the young man sighs and seems to relax into the chair, his mouth opening with everything he's kept behind locked doors for so long tumbling out. "He's just… he does it so _gently_ that I almost didn't realise at first. He'd just slip it into conversation, _don't you think you're working too much_ and _you should relax a bit, you're no fun _and then he'd try to make me…"

Looking at the wrecked expression on the Quartermaster's face, Bond stands up abruptly. "Will he be at home now?" he asks, noticing vaguely that his voice has gone all growly and he even _sounds_ possessive and maybe there's something wrong with that because Q isn't _his_ no matter how much his body suddenly thinks he should be.

The Quartermaster frowns up at him. "Don't hurt him, 007, it's more trouble than he's worth," he says wearily.

Bond just holds out a hand to help him up. "It's not more trouble than _you're_ worth," he replies, but when Q doesn't move he hesitates. "I won't hurt him," he says reluctantly. "I'll just make sure he's too scared to come near you again. That's what you want, isn't it?"

For a moment he thinks Q will decline, but then the lanky genius takes the proffered hand and hauls himself to his feet. "Yes," he says tiredly. "Thank you."

Bond drives, and Q slumps in the passenger seat picking absently at his cardigan. They don't speak, but there's an air of trust between them, of barriers dropped. Bond's hands clench on the steering wheel in front of him and his heart makes strange noises at the thought of all the things he'd do to _Terry_ if he actually _had_ hit Q and the way he wants to stroke the frowny lines on the younger man's forehead until they fade away into giggles.

Q drops his keys in the hallway because his hands are shaking, and the noise elicits a low shout of "_There_ you are, finally!" from the kitchen. Bond notices the lanky genius flinching at the sound and puts a hand on his shoulder.

"You don't have to be here for this," he says quietly.

The younger man straightens, forcing his shoulders back. "Yes, I do," he replies.

_Terry _comes out of the kitchen then, barges out like a bull on the rampage; then he catches sight of Bond, standing calmly beside the smaller figure with his hands in his pockets, and he stops. "007, isn't it?" he asks, plainly surprised. "Is everything all right?"

"Fine," Bond says in an over-the-top cheerful voice. "I simply couldn't help but notice that my Quartermaster has a number of fingerprint-shaped bruises on his arm and thought I'd just check to see that everything is all right."

The implication is plain, but apparently _Terry_ is too thick to catch the undertone of quiet menace in the words. He frowns angrily at Q. "You _told _him?"

"He didn't have to," Bond answers for him. "In my line of work I spend a lot of time around lowlifes like you." The burly man looks indignant, but has the brains not to say anything until Bond has delivered his final line. "I'm not particularly used to leaving them alive."

_Terry'_s piggy brown eyes narrow. "Are you threatening me?"

He could say something hugely sarcastic, but instead opts for an exaggerated look of concentration as though he has to think about the response. "Yes," he says firmly.

And _still_ the other man hangs on, insisting that it wasn't as bad as whatever Q had said, that they had had an argument but they were fine really, and Bond's fists are clenching with the tremendous effort not to just strangle the man already because the excuses go _on _and on until –

"Terry," Q says loudly. Both men turn to face him, Bond's fists still clenched, _Terry_ cutting off mid-sentence. "Get out," the young Quartermaster orders.

The burly man's mouth opens in shock. "But I –"

"_Now," _Q insists. "007's right, I don't have to put up with you. You can come back tomorrow when I'm at work for the rest of your things and leave your key on the table."

_Terry_ looks from Q to Bond and back again. Bond smiles tightly and gestures to the door. The burly man rounds on him, his red face rapidly turning the colour of tinned beetroot. "I know why you're doing this," he spits out. Bond raises an innocuous eyebrow. "I saw the look on your face when you saw me with him. I know you want him, know you've thought about touching him and _having_ him. He won't let you, he's too cold and uptight and he's smart enough to know that you're just as bad as I am."

He stays still, even though he wants to scream and spit and punch because doesn't he _see_ that Q is precious and needs to be treated with respect? He stays still, looking the other man in the eyes calmly. "You're pathetic," he says, keeping his voice quiet and even. "You heard the man, get out."

So with a final glare at the two of them, _Terry_ yanks his jacket off the hook by the door and storms out of the flat.

Q sags, blowing out his cheeks in relief and leaning against the wall. Bond tries to smile at him, but it comes out hollow and he's glad the younger man isn't looking. "Where do you keep your tea?" he asks instead, patting the Quartermaster on the shoulder as he walks past.

"The cupboard directly above the sink," Q replies, following him into the kitchen and flopping into a chair at the table, immediately sinking into what's become his default pose, looking defeated with his head in his hands. Bond locates the kettle, fills it, turns it on, and lifts the Quartermaster's hands away from his face.

"Hey," he says gently. "You're okay now."

The lanky youth takes his hands, just holding them gently between his own, and smiles weakly. "Yeah," he agrees. "Thank you."

Bond makes tea and lets Q hold his hand, and somehow taking care of him seems so natural that he does it all the way to the bedroom, until the young Quartermaster is in his pyjamas and sitting up in bed with the covers pulled up around his ankles, wiggling his toes awkwardly.

He has the strangest urge to physically tuck the younger man into bed, to smooth the dark curls away from his forehead and press a gentle goodnight kiss there instead, and _that_, stupidly, is when it hits him, the full glorious truth of it. _He_ wants to be the one to make Q smile, the reason that he hums _The Merry Old Land of Oz_ while he taps away at his computer, the one who makes him giggle and flush. And deplorable as it is, Terry was right – well, half-right: he _does_ want Q, so much that there's suddenly not enough air in the room for the both of them and Bond has to get out.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Q," he says quickly, and as soon as the lanky genius smiles at him in acknowledgment he turns and flees.

As such, he almost misses the tiny voice that calls him back from the door. "007?"

He turns back immediately because there's something in that voice he can't refuse, and when he gets there the Quartermaster is fiddling nervously with a corner of his bedspread. "Would you stay?" he asks quietly, his eyes carefully downcast.

Bond knows he shouldn't, not with everything he can't believe he only just realised, but the younger man looks tired and wary and so _vulnerable_ that he doesn't have the heart to do the right thing.

He falls asleep to the sound of Q's heavy, steady breathing with a keyboard-calloused hand resting gently on his bicep as though making sure he's still there.

* * *

**A/N:** I may possibly write another chapter to cement the _getting together at the end_ side of things. Please do review or I'll never get better :)

-**for you!**


	2. Chapter 2

He wakes up half-hard with a hand stoutly affixed to each of his Quartermaster's surprisingly lush buttocks. To be fair, said Quartermaster is all-hard and draped over him like a leopard-print blanket, but in Q's case this is human male biology and not to be helped.

Bond closes his eyes and takes a deep, calming breath. Then he gently removes his hands from the soft cotton of the younger man's flimsy pyjama-bottoms and slowly rolls him back onto the bed.

For all his apparent lack of subtlety on the field, he's always been very good at leaving bedrooms quietly to avoid morning-after conversations. He pauses at the door, though, to look back and drink his fill of the sight of Q flopped on his back with his bedsheets twisted around his ankles and his pyjamas askew around his gangly limbs and straining erection.

Forcing himself to breathe before he chokes, Bond leaves the bedroom and pads into the dark and the quiet of the flat's kitchen and puts the kettle on. He isn't used to the warmth that pools in his chest remembering how Q had reached over and laid a hand on his arm before he fell asleep – far more familiar, though, is the flush of heat from the memory of how he had awoken, damp breath pillowing against the side of his neck, his own treacherous hands pulling the lithe techie towards his groin.

He goes back armed with tea, having re-donned the trousers he'd dropped after agreeing to spend the night and hung his shirt over his shoulders, and perches with it on the side of the bed that he'd slept in, watching the younger man's face as he breathes calmly, a thin sheen of sweat showing in the places his pyjamas don't quite cover: the delectable curve of his neck, the little dips between his pelvis and his hipbones.

Whatever dream the Quartermaster is having, it seems to be trundling along nicely; it's a shame to wake him, but he knows the shame of _not_ waking him and being discovered watching him like this would be worse for both of them, so he clears his throat and gives it a try.

"Q," he says softly, wanting to _ease_ the other man into wakefulness rather than jolt him awake, but the word seems to have the opposite effect: upon hearing it, the lanky genius makes a whimpering sound and tries to thrust his hips towards something. Every inch of Bond's body flushes with brilliant heat, and the effort involved in _not_ just jumping on his younger counterpart and throwing his dream into reality _that_ way is almost crippling.

He tries again, trying not to let his voice shake, raising it and keeping it firm in a way that couldn't be misconstrued even in a dream as a sexual invitation. "_Quartermaster,"_ he says sternly.

But Q _moans_, and despite how hard Bond has been trying not to look, he notices the steady slide of a pale hand down a flat stomach and towards –

"_Q!_" he almost bellows, knowing that the Quartermaster would rather be woken now than wake naturally after having embarrassed himself like that. Of course, Bond doesn't find it embarrassing so much as helplessly arousing, but Q isn't to know that.

The younger man opens his eyes slowly, drawing in and letting out a deep sigh. _Then_ he remembers, or seems to, and jerks into a sitting position, scrambling for the blankets to protect the tiny shreds of his modesty.

Bond smiles in what he hopes is an amiable manner. "Good morning, Q," he says brightly, as though he hadn't been avidly watching the younger man attempt to rut himself to climax a few moments ago. "I made tea, but you'll probably want to have a shower first."

Q stares at him for a moment. "Yes," he says shortly, trying to make his way out of the bed in a dignified manner but failing and walking awkwardly towards the bathroom. Bond shrugs to himself and makes his way back to sitting at the kitchen table with his own cup of tea, trying to ignore the fact that he knows _exactly_ what his Quartermaster is doing in the bathroom.

Ten minutes later the lanky man joins him in the kitchen, dressed in a periwinkle-blue pullover that makes his skin look creamy and edible and studiously adjusting his glasses so that he doesn't have to look him in the eyes. The cup of tea opposite Bond is cooler than he himself would have liked it, but the Quartermaster barely makes a face as he sits down and drinks it. After a moment, Q clears his throat and looks up. "Sorry," he says, his cheeks immediately flushing endearingly scarlet. "About, you know, before."

_I'm not,_ Bond wants to say, but he smiles tightly and shakes his head instead. "I'm a man, too," he says calmly.

Q smiles and opens his mouth to say something undoubtedly sardonic, but the sound of keys in the front-door lock cuts him off and they both look around. The younger man looks at Bond as the door opens, looking horrified. "Oh, he _isn't_," Bond growls, that hot and ugly feeling flooding his stomach again. The Quartermaster reaches across the table and grabs his hand to stop him from standing up.

That's how _Terry_ finds them, sitting over tea in the kitchen together, Bond's shirt still unbuttoned over his bare chest with their hands linked on the tabletop.

The passage of his eyes is painfully obvious, from Q's face to Bond's torso to their hands. Bond tries to pull away, but Q – perhaps sensing the intention to get up from the table and bodily remove the other man from the flat – holds on tighter.

_Terry's_ upper lip curls disgustingly. "I _knew_ it," he hisses. "_I knew it_ – this is why you got him to get rid of me last night, isn't it, so you could have him instead? I _knew_ it was the right thing to come here before you left, _knew_ I could catch you at it. What makes you think he's any different from me? Now you've had your magnificent victory shag-fest with Mr Secret Agent _double-oh-seven_ what makes you think he'd stay with a filthy_ slut_ like –"

_Right._

Bond yanks his hand out of the Quartermaster's, his blood roaring in his ears, and before he quite knows what he's doing he has the burly man pinned against the wall, his feet dangling an inch off the floor, one large calloused hand squeezing dangerously against his throat. Bond can hear Q shouting, _007_, but it sounds like it's coming from too far away to listen to. His world, such as it is, has been reduced to the sensation of _Terry_'s pulse accelerating under the web between his fingertips and the blind fury coursing through his own bloodstream.

"That was your last warning," he growls. "If _either_ of us ever see you again, it won't be _my hand_ cutting into your jugular."

The man's face is purple and his eyes have started to roll back, and Bond knows he's just moments from passing out, so he steps back, releasing him to slide down the wall and lie helpless on the floor. Q stops yelling at him, but Bond isn't finished. As _Terry_ gasps for breath, Bond nudges his stomach with a bare foot. "Give him your key now," he says, his voice still so low and primal it's almost hurting his throat. "Then get your stuff and get out."

Whimpering, _Terry_ snatches his keys out of his jacket pocket and throws them at Q while desperately scrambling out of the room towards the bedroom. Taking a deep breath, Bond turns back to the young Quartermaster. "Are you all right?" he asks gently.

But Q's face is like thunder. "Am _I _all right? _Christ, _007, what _was_ that?"

Bond blinks, confused. "I… he called you…"

"Do you honestly think that's the first time he's called me a slut?" the younger man retorts, his voice rising back into a shout. "I don't always need you to defend my honour, 007. Believe it or not, _sometimes_ I can handle myself!"

Startled, Bond holds up his hands in surrender, feeling his heart sink. "I was just trying –"

The Quartermaster freezes at the look on his face. "Oh, God," he says, his entire body crumpling into itself as he sinks back into a chair. "He was right, wasn't he? You didn't do any of this for _me_, you did it because you were _jealous_. Because _you_ wanted me."

"_What_?" Bond splutters. "That doesn't make any sense! I did it because –"

Q picks up their empty teacups, standing up with a clatter, and dumps them into the sink. "I trust you can find the rest of your clothes and find your own way out," he says, picking up his laptop and jacket from where he left them the previous night. "I'm going to miss my tube."

"I've still got the car," he argues after him, watching helplessly as he shrugs into his jacket and yanks the door open viciously. "Where are you going?"

"To work!" the Quartermaster yells over his shoulder as he slams the door behind him.

Bond barely pauses to snatch up his socks and shoes and jacket before sprinting out of the door behind him. He's not sure what he wants to say, but there has to be something he _can_ say to counteract whatever Q has in his head – and he's not even sure what that is. Even if he _had_ acted the way he did towards _Terry_ because he was jealous of him – and he can't be entirely sure that that isn't the case – he was still doing it _for Q_.

However, he's barely started the engine of the car when his mobile phone rings and M's voice is panicking at him, something about an Ambassador's son being kidnapped and an outrageous ransom note and he doesn't make it into the office at all, let alone corner the Quartermaster and force him to see reason. Although, as he thinks about it late that night when the last of the kidnappers is sobbing underneath his shoe, perhaps that wouldn't have been the best approach to it anyway.

So it's not until the next day, at precisely ten-thirty in the morning, that Bond steadfastly wanders into Q's office with two steaming mugs of Earl Grey. The young Quartermaster looks up at him and stiffens visibly, his entire body suddenly on edge. "What are you doing here, 007?" he asks sharply.

Bond tries to wave his handful without slopping it, fails, and sets it down in front of the lanky genius instead. "Tea. It's ten-thirty, I've got to check in with Q-branch."

The Quartermaster sighs. "I can get someone to give you the documentation pertaining to yesterday's job. You're not required to come to me personally."

"I know I'm not," Bond says indignantly. "I came to apologise for yesterday morning. I overreacted when he insulted you. But I'm… not sure I deserved everything you said afterwards."

There's a long pause, and then Q gestures at the seat opposite him. Bond takes it as an invitation to continue, so he does. "I don't… think I can tell you that I didn't do it because I was jealous, or because I wanted you, but I can tell you that that wasn't what I was thinking at the time." The younger man only arches an implacable eyebrow at him. Bond takes a deep breath. "All I was thinking was that you were unhappy. I've got to know you with all this tea and conversation, Q, and since I met _Terry_," he spits out the name with no small amount of malice, "you've stopped humming to yourself, and you've stopped dancing to _The Pink Panther_ when you thought I wouldn't notice, and you started spending more and more time here like you didn't want to go home and you stopped packing your own lunch like you were trying to leave as soon as you could in the morning and every time you jumped when I accidentally touched you it broke my heart because you weren't _you_." He pauses, because the look on Q's face is chest-achingly hopeful and maybe, _maybe_, there's still a chance if he doesn't screw it up. "I missed you," he finishes quietly. "The cheerful you."

He sits back, leaves the declaration on the table and picks up his tea instead. Q stares at him for a while. "I'm not sure what you're saying," he says finally.

Bond smiles, because it's not a rejection. "I'm just trying to say –"

His phone rings. He catches the swear words before they leave his mouth, because Q is shifting in his seat and looking pointedly at Bond's pockets, so he yanks out the Q-branch phone and tries to answer it with even a touch of his usual aplomb. "I must say, M, you have appalling timing," he says lightly.

The shadow of a smile passes over the Quartermaster's face. "Where are you, 007?" M asks, ignoring his comment.

"Q-branch," Bond answers questioningly. "Am I supposed to be somewhere else?"

There's a pause. "What are you doing in Q-branch at this time of the morning?"

Bond frowns. "I'm checking in with Q," he says, slightly nonplussed. "I'm almost always in Q-branch at this time of morning. At your behest, I had thought."

He looks up at the Quartermaster, but the younger man is looking the other way, staring determinedly into the depths of his teacup with a delightful blush creeping up from his neck to fill out his cheekbones. "I haven't sent you down to Q-branch in months, 007. I had been led to believe that I would be pursuing a lost cause – I admit I've been wondering who you were shagging down there to get your paperwork in on time."

He spares a smile for the statement, but the implication isn't lost on him. "You never told Q to keep an eye on me," he says blankly.

"Certainly not," M responds crisply. "My predecessor trusted you with her life. I was prepared to do the same."

Q lifts the teacup to his lips, and it's obvious even from where Bond is sitting that his hands are shaking. "Was there something you needed, M?" he asks shortly.

"I was going to make what I thought was a hopeless attempt to remind you that the Ambassador wants a written report on yesterday's incident," M says, sounding wryly amused now. "Apparently you don't need the motivation."

Bond hangs up the phone and looks at the Quartermaster expectantly. "All those requests to test new weaponry or look over files," he says softly. "They were straight from you?"

The young genius bites his bottom lip, causing the top one to pooch over even more adorably than usual. "I liked you," he says after a moment, his voice so quiet Bond almost asks him to repeat himself. "And you never talked to anyone. I thought you might be lonely."

He smiles gently. "I was," he says. Q looks up at him and smiles briefly. "I don't have friends," Bond muses, sitting back in his chair. "It's just something I don't get around to doing, and I'd come to like it. That you still managed to somehow worm your way into becoming one is quite remarkable."

The Quartermaster shrugs self-deprecatingly, but there's the tiniest hint of a smile on his face, and so Bond leans forward again for the final push. "Q, when I said I wanted you," he says urgently, "I meant I want _you_. I want _The Wizard of Oz_ and the celery sticks and the sarky comments about my non-existent personal life, not just your arse or your eyes or your incredible computer-genius brain. I want _all of you_."

It hangs there for a minute. Then Q jumps up and half-_climbs_ over his desk towards him; Bond catches the merest glimpse of a desperate expression and the tiniest graze of sculpted lips on his own before the Quartermaster knocks over Bond's half-empty, still-hot teacup into his lap and he has to stand up, shouting at the pain.

"_Bollocks!_"

When he looks back, yanking at the waistband of his expensive slacks until he can hold the fabric away from his skin to stop the burning, the young genius is still there, draped over the table, his chin now resting on one hand and his rump bent over the edge of his desk. His body flushes hot for a reason that has nothing to do with the tea seeping through his undergarments and everything to do with the completely unapologetic expression on the Quartermaster's face. "_Q!_"

The young man smiles. "Sorry," he says, not looking sorry at all. Then he sobers and scoots backwards off the table, arse wriggling enticingly. "I really am sorry. And about before. I just… I have a fairly specific type when it comes to boyfriends and they're always _dangerous._ Terry isn't the first one that's turned nasty."

Bond grins, and then Q is standing up and walking towards him, and Bond is stepping backwards just in case he's got his own cup of tea stashed behind his back in order to toss _that_ over him as well. "I think you need to learn the difference between a _dangerous_ man and a _bad_ man," he says.

The Quartermaster laughs. "I think I'm going to be learning that very soon," he quips, his confident tone of voice at odds with the slightly uncertain, hopeful expression on his face.

"First lesson," Bond begins, flapping his ruined trousers at the younger man. "If you pour tea into the lap of a _bad_ man, you get socked in the face. Pour tea into the lap of a _dangerous_ man, and this happens."

Q's body folds neatly into his when Bond pins him against the wall, and the younger man giggles and flushes as Bond takes an earlobe between his teeth and sucks it. His arms wrap tightly around Bond's torso as his mouth is claimed and plundered, and he sighs contentedly as they break apart years later. "I think we should get you out of those pants, 007," he says lazily.

Bond grinds his uncomfortably wet crotch into his Quartermaster's and thinks that that sounds like a marvellous idea indeed.


End file.
